


Matches

by veritas_st



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, TWCP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:35:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veritas_st/pseuds/veritas_st
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Kate was like dynamite.  Quick to ignite, quick to die down, but she left devastation in her wake. </p>
<p>But if Derek thinks long and hard enough he remembers her smile, the way her curls would tumble over her shoulder, the smell of her skin on his hands.  She would laugh when he said sweet things, pinch the end of his nose and kiss him and Derek had thought he would never be in love with anyone like he was in love with Kate.  </p>
<p>And it isn’t until some unassuming kid in too much red and plaid comes into his life that he realises what he’s missing."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hatteress (goddammitstacey)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddammitstacey/gifts).



_I used to play with matches._

The first smell Derek remembers is fire. The smell of heat and burning, the happiness it causes, the warmth. 

Heat is what made home, home. It makes it safe and comfortable. Fire blazing in the grate, Laura poking it with a stick whilst their dad laughs and curls his big hand around her small one, showing her how it works whilst Derek watches curled up in the big armchair at the left of the fire place. 

Candles around his mothers bath as she runs her hand through the water, testing the heat, making sure its _just right_ before shooing Derek out of the bathroom, dropping a kiss to his head and locking the door. 

The _whoomp_ of gas as it ignites on the stove, the clang of pots, his mother cooking with Laura, showing her how to mix cake batter and sweat onions. 

Everything about home is fire and warmth and light.

It isn’t the fire he likes. Fire hurts, burns, leaves marks against his skin which heal but he can still feel. It’s the smell, the flash of light and the smell of smouldering when it catches.

The smell of matches always makes him think of home. It used to mean the smell of cooking and heat; smoke as the fire crackles in the grate; his family. 

All fire means now is death and destruction and pain. 

And then it makes him think of Kate. 

…

Kate was like dynamite. Quick to ignite, quick to die down, but she left devastation in her wake. 

But if Derek thinks long and hard enough he remembers her smile, the way her curls would tumble over her shoulder, the smell of her skin on his hands. She would laugh when he said sweet things, pinch the end of his nose and kiss him and Derek had thought he would never be in love with anyone like he was in love with Kate. 

…

Kate had beguiled, cast a spell over Derek and with one flick of her wrist his family had gone. He can still smell the burning in his nose, the sound as the family home groaned and cracked, flames licking up out of the windows, over the roof, Laura’s arms tight around him to keep him from running into the flames, to rescue the last remnants of his happy life. 

With one look at Kate’s beautiful face Derek had sentenced his family to that fiery death. 

…

Kate left scars. Obvious really when the one person who think you could love for the rest of your life ends up burning your family alive; wolves and humans alike. The scars are deep; guilt and pain and the ache of loneliness. The ache of guilt that despite what she had done, Derek still misses her sometimes. Misses her laugh and the way she would toss her hair over her shoulder, the smell of her sweat as their legs tangled under sheets, her laugh as Derek made plans for their life together, plans she had no intention of making with him. 

The type of scars she left, and the ones left by finding Laura as he did, make Derek close up. Before he had been happy with his family, his secret girlfriend that treated him like an adult when most of the time he still felt like a child, his life had been all planned out in his head. 

After Kate, he becomes distant, reserved. He even hears Laura telling him to lighten up, she appears in his dreams sometimes, blood red under her nails as she puts her hands on her hips and tells him to grow up and stop moping. Go out and grab life by the balls and _take it_.

But he keeps everyone at arms length, taking responsibilities on himself like Atlas holding up the world, shouldering everything and everyone around him to keep himself from falling. 

And it isn’t until some unassuming kid in too much red and plaid comes into his life that he realises what he’s missing. 

…

Stiles comes into his life like the blundering idiot he is. Stumbling and talking too fast and making Derek’s head swim. 

Like an itch that just won’t soothe no matter how much you scratch it, Stiles worms his way into Derek’s life. He should say that Scott brings Stiles but Derek can’t seem to think that way. When he thinks about the teenagers now in his life, in his home, its Stiles that bought them. Stiles that bought the laughter back into his life. Slowly and surely. 

…

_So many nasty stitches, so many jagged blades._

…

Derek doesn’t realise what’s happening at first. The kid just chips away at the walls that Derek had built with those hands that never seem to stay still. Hands that now Stiles has grown, fill out the small frame that he always seemed so unsure of, hands that are large with veins marring the surface of the skin like a map, criss-crossed with tiny scars, hands that Derek often finds himself wondering what they would feel like on his own skin. Derek knows every aspect of those hands now, how the fingers would twitch against his thighs when he had to say something he knew would upset someone. The constant tip-tap of a rhythm only Stiles knew against his knee watching TV. And the way those hands can calm with one simple touch to the back of Derek’s neck. 

Stiles had always been unsure of his body, his lithe frame underappreciated when he was younger, sprawling across the couch with his legs spread impossibly wide and Derek used to wonder how someone so seemingly small took up so much room. 

When Stiles is hurting though he curls in on himself and make himself as small as possible and Derek hates when he does that. Misses the expanse of Stiles on his couch whenever he sees the seemingly vulnerable boy instead. 

But as Stiles gets older, chipping away more and more at the walls and scars Derek has thrown up, he gets more used to his body, fills out in ways that make Derek _feel_ even though he doesn’t want to.

With Stiles’s mouth Derek finds a reason to smile again. The never ending stream of words that seem to spill from his lips is annoying at first, irritating Derek to the point where he threatens violence, anything to stop the words. Stiles only smiles, gets past the point where he actually believes the threats, and smiles with that mouth and after a while, Derek can only smile back.

Derek finds himself wondering if that mouth would be better at something else other than talking. Finds himself thinking about it late at night with his hand drifting lower on his stomach feeling guilty and dirty and turned on all at the same time. 

Stiles doesn’t always talk though, his mouth stilling, bottom lip catching between his teeth when he’s nervous, or when he’s trying not to laugh, his nostrils twitching at the same time. That lower lip’s full and plump when he lets it go and Derek wants to run his thumb over it, watch Stiles’s eyes go wide as he sees the want shining through from Derek’s. Stiles runs a pencil over his lip whilst he’s thinking, chewing on the tip right before he furrows his brow and begins writing notes again; notes that help the pack and Derek often wonders when this annoying kid became so invaluable to their survival. 

When Stiles first kisses Derek, uses that mouth, bottom lip full and plump and pressed against the curve under Derek’s, Derek freezes, caught between his body wanting everything Stiles offers and being scared to death of what that means. He pulls away and Stiles stutters through an apology, runs his long fingers through his hair. 

Derek feels the first terrifying hints of a thaw in his veins, the final brick of the walls crumbling, the last scar open and honest and Derek’s been this way for so long he doesn’t remember how not to be, doesn’t remember how to be normal and happy. 

He pushes Stiles away, keeps him at arms length and tries to ignore the hurt in Stiles’s eyes whenever he looks at Derek. 

…

_I tidied up the pieces, tried to mend my ways_

Where Kate was burning heat and fire, Stiles is more like light. Creeping into every shadow and spilling over every scar across Derek’s very soul. Warm and comforting. And easy, just the flick of a switch and there he is. 

He smiles and Derek feels warmth seeping into his veins.

…

But Stiles is…pure. Perhaps that’s the wrong word, but Derek has no right dragging Stiles into his scarred world and putting out that light. Because no matter what Derek does, Stiles will be dragged down. 

He tells himself that as he pushes Stiles away but at the same time keeps him close and he stares at Stiles sometimes, watching the little frown on his face as he concentrates, staring hard enough to try and see right through to the middle of what makes him tick, to what drives him towards Derek when Derek is so broken and burned. The blush that creeps up Stiles’s neck when he catches Derek watching is more than Derek can take. It makes his chest hurt, the need to see how far that blush goes down under his too lose collar.

But Stiles is light and Derek cant put it out. 

…

He keeps him close though, tries to show Stiles how important he is. How he worked his way into Derek’s life and made it better, made his house a home again. Bought family and laughter back in to it with his easy smile and happy laugh. 

“Why are you doing this?” Stiles asks, sighing, his fingers pressing into the bridge of his nose and Derek hasn’t noticed how tired Stiles looks until this moment. 

“I need your help,” Derek replies, shrugging and hoping that simple act of asking Stiles to stay behind, to help Derek research yet another supernatural creature running around the town will stop Stiles seeing through what Derek really wants. And can’t allow himself to have. 

“Why me?”

“Because you’re pack,” Derek looks up in time to see Stiles shake his head and close his laptop, shoving it into his bag. 

“I’m not though. You made sure of that.” And with a sweep that leaves the house feeling cold and empty, Stiles is gone. 

…

Derek can’t have Stiles like he wants him, can’t have him naked and begging, warm and willing. He makes himself believe that he can’t have him. But he can’t have Stiles not in his life. So he shows Stiles, with little gestures, inviting Stiles over for pack nights, (nights which Stiles always turns down, bowing out at the last minute with little or no warning), or accepting his help in fights that Derek wants him no part of. It’s the only way Derek can think of to keep Stiles close yet far enough away to keep Stiles safe.

Stiles doesn’t smile as much. It hurts Derek to see that, to see the lips fall from smiling to straight. The fingers that used to drive Derek crazy, don’t move as much, stilling as they rest on his knees, he sits taking in with large expressive eyes everything that goes on around him. The lip stays between his teeth, but Derek has always hated that anyway, hates when Stiles is nervous. 

But Stiles is light, where Kate was fire, and Derek doesn’t want that light to dim. 

…

_But he came right out of nowhere, like an unfamiliar tune._

Stiles doesn’t come around as much anymore and Derek knows why. He feels the lack of laughter in his own need to touch Stiles, to trace the path his moles make across his skin. To feel Stiles’s lips against his just one more time. Properly this time, with Derek kissing him back like he’s wanted to since Stiles first smiled at him. 

The ache in Derek’s chest at the lack of Stiles sprawling on his couch, the easy smile on his lips, the unknown rhythm tapping out against his knee, a tune only he knows, is too much to bear sometimes and Derek wants to scream against the emptiness. Even when the rest of the pack is there, Derek still feels the lack of Stiles like a punch to his gut. 

No one seems to notice, and how they don’t, Derek never knows. How they don’t hear the practically deafening silence that follows the lack of Stiles he just can’t understand. Stiles makes a room his own, carves out his own big space in Derek’s life and Derek can’t see a way to be without him. 

…

_I sat down on my arm chair and opened up my wounds._

Stiles’s name sounds foreign on Derek’s tongue, so unused to saying it out loud and Stiles has frozen to the spot, his hand around the door handle. Derek didn’t even use an excuse to get Stiles here, just called him, told him Derek needed him and Stiles had showed up. Like he always did. Derek needs to tell Stiles everything, to open up and let Stiles in because Stiles brings light into Derek’s life and Derek needs him like he’s never needed anything in his life before. 

Stiles shakes his head, knuckles white around the door handle. 

“Kate was so beautiful…” Derek starts, looking anywhere but Stiles’s shoulders which tense but move with a ragged breath in. 

“You don’t have…” 

“She was beautiful and she looked at me,” Derek says and Stiles lets his hand fall from the door handle, turns around to Derek and Derek stumbles against the weight of emotion on Stiles’s face. 

Derek tells Stiles everything, about Kate, about how she was a secret, the way her hair smelled, and the way her smile would light up her face. He told Stiles about how Kate would laugh at him; fondly ruffle his hair under her hands. How she pulled him close and how he lost that last shred of innocence with her, buried inside her body with her hands clamped around his shoulders.

He tells Stiles how he’d fallen in love as much as a sixteen year old could. How he’d wanted to run away with her, start a new life far from Hunters and his own Pack.

He tells Stiles how Kate had burned his family alive and how Derek can’t get over the guilt that he drove her to them. 

He tells Stiles how he wanted nothing more than to kiss Stiles back that day, to pull him close and fall into Stiles’s warmth, but he couldn’t. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t. Couldn’t let Stiles get hurt like that. 

Stiles frowns the whole way through, fingers twitching by his sides like he wanted to reach out but just lets Derek talk instead. At the end he frowns even harder, watching Derek with his head cocked to the side as Derek stumbles through telling how Stiles how much he means, how important he is, not to the Pack, but to Derek himself. Stiles shakes his head but he does nothing more than reach out and touch his fingers to the back of Derek’s clenched fist. 

“I get it,” he says, his voice sounding like music to Derek’s ear after so many days, _weeks_ of silence from Stiles. “But if you stop living because of her, she’s won.” 

One of the things that Derek loves about Stiles is his ability to completely take the wind from Derek’s sails with just a few words. Derek blinks a couple of times and Stiles’s hand slides over the back of Derek’s, fingers curling around his wrist. He squeezes once and lets go, leaving Derek’s skin tingling and cold where Stiles’s fingers used to be. 

“I should…” Stiles hooks his thumb over his shoulder, “I should go.” 

Derek wants to call him back but the words stick in his throat. 

…

Stiles comes round more after that, pushes a little bit, stitches together Derek’s now open scars with his smiles and small (too few and far between) touches. The tapping starts again, an easy rhythm and Derek finds himself smiling more, indulgently at Stiles across the room whilst Stiles sprawls on the couch, taking up far too much room. 

Derek comes home one day, bruised and battered from punishing himself, but healing fast, to find Stiles in his kitchen. Stiles is cooking.

Derek smells it as soon as he walks through the door but he can hear it too. The clatter of pots, the whoosh as the gas ignites. Stiles humming. It’s so achingly like home before that Derek freezes in the hallway, taking in the smells and sounds, hand wrapped around the bottom of the stairs. 

Derek makes it to the kitchen before Stiles realises he’s there, leaning against the doorframe watching Stiles move like liquid around the kitchen, as though he has nothing else to do in his life except watch Stiles. 

As Derek watches, speechless just from having Stiles this close, this _domestic_ in his home, flames from the gas licks up the side of the pot and Stiles curses under his breath as it catches the smooth surface of his wrist. Derek’s there, cool fingers around the skin before Stiles can even blink. 

“Be careful,” Derek scolds, running his fingers over Stiles’s skin, pressing his palm to the burn. Stiles blinks, curls his own fingers around Derek’s arm like he’s trying to stop the black tendrils as they parade through Derek’s skin. 

“You don’t have…” Derek cuts off Stiles with a frown. 

“I know I dont.” 

…

Stiles pushes, but he doesn’t push too far, just enough to let Derek know he’s there, enough to let Derek know that he has to make the move, he has to go to Stiles. 

And Derek wants to, he really does, spends hours talking himself through it, trying to push himself to take the first step. Knowing that Stiles wants it too should help, but every time he tries, that little voice in the back of his head, Kate’s voice, warns him off, the ghost of the smell of burning lingering in his nose. 

Everyone he loved got hurt. Even the pack, Erica and Boyd, and Derek can still remember the sharp smell of Boyd’s blood as Erica had dragged him through the door, her large eyes brimming with tears as Boyd healed slowly on the dusty floor. 

Everyone gets hurt eventually and Derek can’t stand to see that happen to Stiles. 

…

In the end it’s Kate that makes Derek take that first step, in a dream, smiling at Derek like she used to, a hint of malice in her eyes as she stares down at Derek, laughs at him. 

“You’re going to lose him, kiddo,” she says, fingers trailing across Derek’s chest, leaving welts, little lines, blood welling to the surface of Derek’s skin. Derek hisses, tries to push her off and she just laughs again. “And you’ll be alone…again. Because you’ll always be alone, with just your dead for company.” 

It’s meant to dissuade him, and Derek wakes with sweat pooling in the centre of his chest, heart beat hammering inside his rib cage. And it does dissuade him, for a while, until Stiles is there, smiling at him across the kitchen with a plate of cookies, slapping away Scott’s hand with an exaggerated eye roll. Kate never smiled like that, with warmth of such heart breaking honesty that it makes Derek’s chest hurt. Kate never laughed like she really meant it, pushing the plate of cookies into Scott’s hand, not like Stiles. 

In the end; although it’s not really the end, Derek can feel that; Derek kisses Stiles in front of the whole pack. Wraps his hands around the sides of Stiles’s neck and even though Derek pauses, gives Stiles enough time to give an almost imperceptible nod, Stiles still lets out a small squeak of surprise when Derek presses their lips together. The rest of the Pack fades away, or goes silent, Derek’s not sure because all he can feel is Stiles’s lips against his own, Stiles’s hands cupping his elbows, tugging him closer, and Stiles’s heart beating inside his chest. 

It’s not long, desperate or wanting. But it’s devastating in its tenderness, its sense of _finally_ and Derek pulls away, runs his thumb up the quivering tendons in Stiles’s neck and the Pack moves all at once. Erica bundling the whole lot out of the kitchen but Derek can’t take his eyes off Stiles.

Hasn’t been able to take his eyes off Stiles for years now. 

“I love you,” it’s the simple truth, so perfectly simple and it makes Stiles smile, wide and honest and Derek pulls him closer again, kisses him like he’s never kissed him before, doesn’t let Stiles say it back just yet because he’s not sure he could take the skip in his heartbeat as he lies. 

Stiles makes people happy, loves making people smile and Derek couldn’t take it if he said it back just to make him smile. 

Derek can feel questions bubbling up Stiles’s throat, _what took you so long, what made you change your mind, what the hell are we doing here_ but he just carries on kissing him, Stiles’s pulse thudding against Derek’s palms.

“Show me you love me,” Stiles whispers against Derek’s lips and Derek wants to say it over and over again till the words don’t feel strange in his mouth anymore, till they come as naturally as loving Stiles feels. He says it again with his kiss, again with the way he takes Stiles upstairs, again with the way he undresses Stiles, slowly, revealing inch by inch of flushed, smooth skin. He shows him again in the way he lays Stiles down and touches every inch of him, skin alive under his fingers, flushing red in places that Derek wants to see flushed for the rest of his life. He shows him again in the way he nips as Stiles’s hip bones, takes Stiles’s cock in his mouth, the scent and taste of Stiles filling him up from the inside out. 

He shows him again when he kisses Stiles as he comes, swallows Stiles’s cry and Derek’s own name as he’s buried deep inside the annoying, mouthy, brilliant kid who’s carved his own place behind Derek’s scars and walls. 

…

_But one of my addictions (is) I used to play with fire._

“What made you change your mind?” Stiles asks later, his legs tangled with Derek’s, he’s taking up far too much room but Derek can’t bring himself to care because Stiles is _here_ , and Derek can still smell sex on his skin and it’s intoxicating in the same way as its terrifying and wonderful. Stiles shifts closer, fingers dancing an intricate dance over Derek’s chest, long fingers so dextrous and almost fragile. Derek curls his hand around Stiles’s, brings the fingers up to his mouth and pulls the tip of the index finger to his lips. He scrapes his teeth over the pad gently and Stiles’s breath stutters. 

“Kate,” he says finally and feels Stiles shift, stiffen, start to pull away but Derek cant see Stiles’s face for this so he holds on and Stiles finally relaxes minutely against him. “And you.” Stiles ducks his head and presses a kiss to Derek’s chest. “I wasn’t going to let her win anymore.” Stiles huffs out a breath against his skin. “You’re…” he stops unsure how to continue but Stiles’s fingers carry on dancing across his skin, nail scraping gently over one nipple and his presence, solid at Derek’s side, makes him take a deep breath. “You’re like her sometimes.” Stiles stiffens again, his hand freezes, but he doesn’t try and pull away and doesn’t say anything. Part of Derek wants to see his face right now, but the other half, the half that knows there will be hurt on that face, confusion and indignation, is glad of the semi darkness. Stiles stays quiet and lets Derek continue. “You both…consume me…” Derek drops a kiss to Stiles’s head, “when I was with her, all I could think about was her. And you…everything I do, I do because of you. But she destroyed, she was destruction and anger and hate,” Derek swallows and Stiles tightens his grip around him. Derek needs to see Stiles’s face now and he turns, pushes Stiles into the mattress and looks down at him. Stiles closes his eyes. “Stiles look at me. You’re warmth and _home_.” Stiles smiles, slowly, lips curling into that perfect crescent that Derek just cant get enough of. 

“I love you too by the way,” Stiles says and there’s no skip in his heartbeat. Just the rhythmic thudding of truth. 

_Do you_  
Do you have a light?  
Do you have the time of day?  
Would you  
Would you save a life  
If you had a life to save? 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lovely Hatteress for the Sterek Campaign. I hope you enjoy sweetheart.
> 
> The lyrics are from Fire by Second Person.


End file.
